That’s me in the corner, chop, chop, choppin’ away. Yep I’m wasting materials leveling Life Skills on my Sorc. Good news is I wasn’t too far along on my other chars and well, I just feel downright comfortable running around on Blackheart here.

My Life Skill took a huge hit in productivity this week as I’d been working on leveling the Sorc up to the awakening. I wanted to play something else and this week I’ve had a little time to unwind and grind thanks to the holiday.

Now it’s time to work in the Life Skills grind. I do pretty much everything but hunting at this point. Though I should start getting that unlocked too since we go fishing and wale hunting on the weekends for the lols.

Whale hunting in BDO is a great guild activity. It’s also a bit more relaxing as compared to grinding and guild missions.

With that in mind I’ve been leveling up alchemy by making the components I need to make Experience Elixirs. I have Clear Liquid Reagents and Clown’s Blood stockpiled. I will probably have to go out for more wolf’s blood at some point next week though just to get a good supply of that.

I was joking about it with one of my guild members who is doing Imperial Alchemy and she’s looking at gathering around 4k Raccoon blood for fun and for profit. Mostly profit.

At the same time I’m farming the Dry Mane grass I’ll need for the final push. I was hoping to get my alchemy a bit further along so I get a better chance at getting the higher quality version over the green, but at this point I’ll take what I can get. Also crafting it instead of buying it from the market is probably going to save me some coin over time.

I’ve also re-established my link to Olvia for Grapes. I’ll need that to start working on Milk Tea. Fortunately I’m getting a good amount of milk from the cooking turn ins, but I’ll probably have to send out an alt to milk those cows as well one of these days.

With all of these projects in motion I’m really thinking that I need to push for more energy. At this point I’m sitting at 245 energy, which is a comfortable amount now that you don’t need it for cooking, alchemy and processing. But I do need it for trading, farming and gathering. I’m fine with that actually because it does mean that there is some demand for gathered components.

Thing is I also do gathering missions for the guild. That means I have to make sure I’ve got enough energy for my own projects as well as leveling the guild. As the guild leader it would seem to be in poor taste to bow out of gathering missions due to lack of energy. Though a bit more energy should help me balance both. Otherwise we may have to start looking into doing more subjugation or trading missions over doing gathering missions.

Speaking of trading, I do plan on getting Trading leveled up on this char as well. I really enjoy trading in this game and I can make a good amount of silver while doing it.

That had been my main source of income when I played classes that I didn’t want to farm with, but now that I have the Sorc I may very well start to get more grinding in. Thing is I’m just not sure where I’ll farm. Honestly at this point I’d prefer experience over silver believe it or not. Reason being that the Sorc has some awesome awakening unlocks at 58. The fun part is getting those two levels.

By fun I mean that it can be soul crushingly excruciating if you’re sitting there staring at the levels. Another one of our guild mates is doing that at the moment and I can’t say I’d trade places.

Hopefully my tea and elixer production will help all of us pour on the xp. Though I also need to find time to quest, get more energy…. Yeah this many months in and there’s STILL a lot to do in BDO.

At the moment I’m enjoying the pre-awakened Sorceress quite a bit. It’s also been pretty handy since I do a bit of off tanking for guild mates when we’re out getting some group grinding on.

It sounds naughtier than it really is sadly.

Also I plan on taking up a bit of Alchemy. I need the base ingredients to charge up my alchemy stone. I have one for life and I LOVE it. I might also pick up one for combat, but haven’t decided on that yet. Mostly because I’d need to be picking weeds every day or have an army of farms just to keep the damn things fueled with reagents.

My main goal in Alchemy at the moment is making Experience Elixers. It gives a slight boost to xp. In BDO I can assure you every little bit helps. Especially since you can stack the Experience Elixers with Milk Tea. That gives you an 18% xp boost. It also keeps you from wanting to tear your hair out from the roots when you’re seeing how little xp your getting per mob past level 56.

When you lump in the consumables xp bonuses in with the 10% xp boost you can get from the value pack and add 10% if you’re willing to pick up a costume, that’s a 38% increase to xp. Using the daily grind hour booster of 100% and xp weekends, you can get some serious xp in. Well that is if you’re willing to grind.

Personally I prefer grinding for XP over doing quests. Mostly because I hate going back to the same damn troll 3 times because he couldn’t tell me up front the he was hoping to incite piggy mass murder. Now if they gave me the option of taking the bone from his nose and beating him with it as a quest reward, then sure I’d be into questing. But a crappy green chest piece that I just disenchant in front of the guy (hopefully crushing his spirits in the process) just doesn’t inspire me to quest.

Though thing is I do like the quest reward system in BDO. Here I use quests to actually give me something lasting that expands my influence in the game and can expand my income potential. Who doesn’t love building their own little empire?

I’m more or less on my way to doing just that in having 3 investment nodes, pretty much all the nodes I can get to make the Calpheon timber crates, and now the nodes I need to get into alchemy.

I have a few of the nodes unlocked for things like plywood hardener which I used to make the Calpheon furniture I have in a few of my houses. This is our guild house in Velia. It’s not much but it’s a cozy place to hang out.

I also like being able to change out points to make costumes whenever I get that bee in my bonnet.

I should probably look into trying to make the high end leathers I need to get some of the costumes made that I still want for the Sorc, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.

Oh yeah, and now that I have a farm again I can also try growing olives. That has a good chance of giving me the flame fruit I’d need to make the flash bangs you have to craft to make the Delphy knights costume. I’d be nice to have one of those for the Sorc too just for the lols.

It’s so odd that a slacker like me has accomplished as much as I have in a grind-core game. I did quite a bit in Neocron too though. Spending hours leveling construction and research. I don’t want to tell you how many hours I spend doing missions. I really don’t want to know.

All in all I’m pretty happy with what I’ve gotten out of BDO and I feel like the effort I’ve put into it has been rewarded. I have a guild full of people that feel almost more like family than friends and I have a good time. I haven’t really had this experience in an MMO in a long time. Though this is also one of the few games that is getting to be MORE fun as time goes on instead of more annoying.

The concessions they’re making for life skillers is just part of the awesome.

Anyways I’m off to get something for my birthday. Until next time keep on keeping on!